by Francois Muscat | Dec 21, 2015 | Ecommerce
If you run an ecommerce website, then you will know that a huge part of ecommerce marketing is getting people to successfully checkout and buy products online. It’s common for people to do window shopping and abandon their shopping carts before making an actual purchase, but there could be a few changes you could make to reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts this Christmas:
Make sure people know what they will be paying for
Shipping costs, courier fees and VAT prices should all be stated upfront. It might not seem a large amount to you, but an online buyer could be discouraged to make a purchase if they only find out about additional costs when they’re about to checkout. Make sure you’ve got these prices listed before they hit the checkout button.
Don’t offer just one method of payment
Some people prefer EFT’s and others like to use their PayPal accounts for online shopping. Offering multiple payment options gives website users the flexibility they need to choose how they want to pay for the products they are buying on your website. If they’re not keen on making payments with their credit card online, then they should be able to choose another payment option.
Offer incentives
Coupons, discounts and sales are a great way to encourage online shoppers to buy from you. Consider a few additional marketing strategies such as flash sales and festive season discounts to encourage people to buy now.
Need help with your ecommerce marketing? Then contact WSI today.
by Francois Muscat | Sep 16, 2015 | Ecommerce, Online Marketing, Website Optimization
Your online sales are greatly influenced by the design you have for your online storefront. The slightest change or shift in the storefront design has the possibility of either improving or harming your conversion rates. The best strategy to increase your sales is through web development techniques that increase your visibility.
For purposes of increasing your conversion rates consider applying these web development techniques:
- Increasing the visibility of the shopping cart
Customers need peace of mind whenever they add items to their cart, knowing whether or not the items they added to the cart were registered. Therefore, it is imperative for you to set aside a section on your website that lists items in the cart at all times. This means you are supposed to:
- Ensure you also provide the necessary check-out information.
- Make sure your customers have an easy time checking out.
- Have a link that takes the customer back to your check-out page.
- Optimising on “add-to-cart” buttons
Site customers as well as visitors will respond differently to action calls. For example, buttons that state “add to cart” or “more details” tend to put off customers, compared to specific buttons such as “buy now,” as they are a direct and specific call to action with the ability to elicit positive responses.
Be careful with the colours selected for your website. Green and blue are deemed as gentle colours that attract people while red and orange put them off.
- Clean the product pages up
The manner in which you organise pages on your website is important as well. You should make sure you do this in a manner that appeals to your website visitors. As such, be certain to:
- Provide product images.
- Include product name.
- Add a description of the product.
- Add the price of the product.
- Clarify navigation paths
Having menus or elements that are hidden on your website can be cause for shopper frustration. Consider having fly-out menus in order to keep your pages clearly visible. Shoppers will find it easier to use your website if, for instance, you provide a “continue shopping” button that makes it easy for them to navigate back.
- Get rid of distractions on the check-out page
Ridding your website of left sidebar navigations is an ideal way to get rid of interferences. This means you should:
- Ignore your urge of continuing to sell through your check-out process.
- Consider having a single page check-out as it records high conversion rates.
Your website should also have a page which allows your customers to complete their billing, credit and shipping information.
Need help with your website development? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marelise da Silva | Aug 20, 2015 | Ecommerce, Website Optimization
If you wish to improve your ecommerce but are not yet fully invested in going into a complete online shop, then the buy button is the way to go for you. This will give you the freedom to sell only a selected amount of items on your website as opposed to being a fully-fledged online store.
How to incorporate a buy button onto your website
You can start making use of this beneficial feature on either your own hosted site, WordPress, Tumblr or any other website platform imaginable. Adding your buy button is as simple as embedding a YouTube video, so you won’t have to worry about programming hassles.
Why a buy button is a smart move
Incorporating a buy button onto your page can open a number of various doors for you by growing your brand. If you are trying to promote only a few items then you can write an entire review on said item and then link a buy button to the page with a photo of the item for sale. This will engage your customers and encourage them to get involved with your brand then and there.
Who can help
If you wish to begin this but are not a computer whizz at the best of times, you needn’t worry. There are people in South Africa who can easily assist you today. WSI OMS is dedicated to helping you reach your digital marketing goals and we offer training courses and a number of services to help you expand and grow to where you wish to be digitally. We have a dedicated team at hand always ready and willing to help where we can. Please do not hesitate to give us a call today and begin to grow your online presence.
